Page History

Christina Chaplin

As a painter and engraver, William Hogarth made his living as an artist producing works highly valued by his audience.  Commissioned in 1732 to paint A Scene from the "Indian Emperor", a children's play, he began a series of commissions from various royal and aristocratic sources.  Being then rejected from portraying the royal wedding including a fat princess and deformed prince, he returned to his forte, the satiric series or image collected by the wealthy and admired/desired by the common folk as well. 

With his work of intrigue he was able to draw upon a large span of audience and the popularity of his works continued to grow.  Yet as an engraver, he only produced so many copies at subscription, charging a premium price.  (We can ignore here that he would produce more series after the subscriptions were filled for a higher price to increase his own profits.)  Many of the lower classes also wanted his works, because they were universally intriguing, but could not afford a guinea to buy one.  So the printsellers of the times monopolized on this demand by hiring other lesser artists to copy the works and sell them at an extreme discount.  Like teenage girls who cannot afford Chanel and go to Chinatown instead, these customers were of the opinion that an imitation was just as good as an original.  Unfortunately, enough people were of this same opinion that sales of original artworks suffered. 

Further, being that the copies were done by lesser artists, the imitations were often not of an excellent quality and could thus by comparison hurt the repute of the original artist.  Hogarth was angered by this practice both because he was losing valuable income to printseller shops piggy backing on his own success, and because his ego was damaged by the low quality of the prints that people were buying because they  believed them to be "just as good".  He petitioned parliament for an act to protect the rights of artists, designers, painters, and engravers to their intellectual property.  By law, this act would prevent forgeries or copies of the whole or parts of works done by artists. 

The Hogarth Act was a formal decree from Parliament that took its impetus from the idea that an artist is able to "own" his work because it is an expression, and thus an extension, of the self.  To Hogarth, it seemed as if the exclusive right to his work was a mandatory condition to be able to control how the work was seen and what kind of response it elicited from the audience (it's "meaning").  Seen in the many contexts layed out by printsellers, the meaning of Hogarth's work was potentially being shifted without his approval: a crime he thought noteworthy and disreputable.

 A quarter century earlier, a literary copyright law had been passed, giving sole right of intellectual property to authors.  Why should the same rules of ownership not apply to the visual arts as well?  Hogarth explained that by selling copies, the printshops were effectively stifling the levels of creativity and artistic endeavor taking place in the city.  Artists who could not make a living selling their own works could simply copy the works of another for a small sum, and were therefore not creating new and innovative arts.  He argued that if a copyright law should be passed, then artists would not have to compete with their own forgeries, which would lower their prices and make the higher arts available to a wider audience.  Also, given that the arts could then supply an artist with an honest living, more and more people would be inclined to try their hand at the arts, increasing the skill and range of English artists (a good incentive for a governmental body concerned with the reputation of its country, as artistic production is often used as a scale for societal sophistication).

 After Parliament approved the law and set a date for its activation, Hogarth postponed the release of his latest series of prints, The Rake's Progress.  Unfortunately, the shopkeepers were eager to produce one last round of copies before the law went into action.  Copies were then made by hearsay and remembrances of his paintings on display at his home.  It seems as if this occasion struck a chord with Hogarth because afterwards he decided to produce and release copies of his own, for a fragment of the cost, through an approved printshop.  He hoped to thwart the efforts of the criminal parties, but it also seems as if he realized the high demand for his work among populations who could not afford originals. 

A common analogy can be seen here with the rise and fall of the internet site Napster a few years ago.  Though copyrights have been in place for all intellectual properties for many years, there is still a demand in the public for cheap imitations where we deem the originals too expensive.  In the music industry, the internet has allowed for many sites to emerge which stream music live, or which allow the user to download as he pleases from a bounty of choices.  Napster was allowing such downloading, the transfer of music MP3 files from one user to another in free market.  Unfortunately, this kind of site was taking revenue away from music artists whose album sales were decreasing and thus discouraging the production of new music.  Many artists and recording companies felt that incomes were being snatched away from them by this process.  In an industry where one feels as if they will be cheated of their rightful profits, it is difficult to lure new artists and have innovation or renown.  In this case, as in the Hogarth Act, the government intervened and deemed the actions of the site illegal.  Yet in today's society, this kind of piracy is still prevalent.  If the copies are good enough, we often do not care if they are not originals or legally procured.  So in this specific industry, "touring" has become a larger part of revenue streams as CD sales dwindle in many areas.  Touring, the live performance of such music, is harder if not impossible to successfully imitate.

Charles Saunders

One of the most important aspects in incentivizing the production of creative work is ensuring that the artist receives full compensation for the fruits of his labor. In short, there is no reason to spend time, money and effort in producing something that is valued to society (be it an invention, a work of art, or a brand name) if the producer can't be assured of just compensation. Copyright laws solve this problem by prohibiting something from reaching public domain until the creator is allowed to profit from his achievement for a specified period of time. It appears that this was a large issue in 18th century Britain. According to the account on the experiences of William Hogarth, piracy was rampant, with etchings, engravings, and prints being so cheap that mass reproduction of an artist's original work was cheap and profitable. Printsellers had a virtual monopoly on the art market, with no other channels existing that connected the artist and the consumer. Printsellers then were able to mass produce reproductions of the original work at no greater benefit to the artist. Other pirates exacerbated the problem, with cheaper knock-off prints flooding the market and hurting the profit margins of artists.

Hogarth experienced considerable personal loss from these factors, leading him to become one of the most vocal proponents for the installation of copyright laws for works of art. Because he worked in a wide variety of mediums and appealed to both the high and low audiences (his works ranged from royal portraits to paintings of condemned prisoners), Hogarth had access to a potentially giant market but experienced very little proportional financial remuneration due to the rampant piracy and printseller's monopolies. He first tried to mitigate this loss through openly advertised subscription services for Midnight Modern Conversation, an etching depicting a drinking house that was popular to its subject matter and the timing of the concurrent unpopular Excise Bill. The subscriptions did not eliminate instances of piracy, but represented an important first step in connecting the producer, Hogarth, directly to his target audience and eliminating the printseller middlemen completely. In this way Hogarth could capture all profit from the primary market and subscription purchases without having a substantial portion of his margins subtracted by the printsellers. Piracy was not lessened, however, and there appeared an infinite variety of copied etchings on everything "from snuffboxes to fan mounts."

Eventually Hogarth, fed up with the rampant piracy from his work Harlot's Progress, led the crusade for the Engraver's Act, nicknamed the "Hogarth Act," to appear before Parliament. This act sought to protect the artist's copyright for a period of fourteen years, guarding against the evils of copying, the evils of the printseller intermediary, and the artist's right to his property. An additional goal was to increase the quality of art in 18th century Britain, as the greater ensured return on produced art was hoped to create a stronger incentive for prospective artists to enter the market, and thus raise the overall quality of British art. This effect would have positive social benefit, as the public would have a greater variety of high-quality art to choose from, it would have positive economic benefit, as a greater supply of artists would increase competition among them, leading to higher quality art as artists competed against each other, and prices would ultimately fall. It would also have positive political benefit, as increased quality of art in Britain would increase the British cultural capital relative to other influential nations on the European continent. Needless to say, the act soon passed, with the final variation extending a copyright to fourteen years and charging a fine per instance of a copied product that was discovered. This act had lasting repercussions throughout the art market and helped legitimize art as a product that carried inherent economic value and was the private property of its creator.